JOE’s DVD Round-up: Killers, Zombies, Losers and Chris Rock

Welcome back to JOE’s DVD round-up. This week we have the hugely controversial but excellent The Killer Inside Me, a mirthless comedy, an action film that wishes it was the A-Team and the sequel to one of the best horror films in recent times.

DVD of the week

The Killer Inside Me

This is the latest film from indie director Michael Winterbottom, a filmmaker who over the last fifteen years has almost gone out of his way to be controversial with films such as the sexually explicit Nine Songs and the his recent exploration of America’s response to terrorism, The Road To Guantanamo.

The Killer Inside Me is no different and is an adaptation of Jim Thompson’s 1952 novel set in the aftermath of World War 2. The film follows small town deputy sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), who is well regarded by the community around him but is in reality a dangerous and sadistic sociopath who has finally had enough of keeping his inner demons at bay. Affleck is absolutely amazing as the slowly unravelling Lou and works hard to draw you in and keep your interest in a character so depraved.

Ultimately though, he just can’t compete with the unnecessary levels of violence the film portrays including an almost unwatchable beating that Lou delivers to a local prostitute. This violence towards women is hugely questionable and nearly undoes the entire film which it has to be said is very good with its pitch-perfect performances, noirish plot and fascinating depiction of a human monster.

Stick with it and you will be rewarded with a film that isn’t afraid of taking a walk on the dark side of America and which once again confirms Winterbottom as a vital and fearless filmmaker who, even when pushing the envelope too far, can deliver something great.

The Losers

This one should have been an agreeable slice of comic book mayhem but instead manages to squander its top notch source material and an excellent cast with a natural chemistry.

The Losers of the title are a crack special forces group that are sent to assassinate a drug baron in Columbia. When they refuse to carry out their attack because it will endanger a group of kids, they are double crossed and assumed dead.

What follows is a strangely bloodless tale of revenge as the group tries to uncover the shadowy architect of their predicament known only as Max. If any of that sounds like the A-Team, well that’s because it is, really, and the graphic novel version was a darkly comic and thoroughly violent affair that was as enjoyable as it was clichéd.

Director Sylvain White gets things off to bad start by giving the whole film an MTV look that wouldn’t be out of place 10 years ago and becomes wearisome after about five minutes. He then compounds this error by toning the violence down to such an extent that the action sequences become lifeless and boring.

The whole film would be a complete mess if it wasn’t for the excellent cast, featuring the always-welcome Jeffery Dean Morgan, the Wire’s Idris Elba and Chris Evan who is in top form here as he wisecracks through the film stealing every scene he’s in.

The film is at its best when it just lets the cast hit off each other but other than this there is precious little else to recommend it.

[.REC] 2

[.REC] was one of the best horror films to emerge from the last decade and used the now-stale found footage technique to put the audience right in the centre of a zombie outbreak, with its handheld style delivering white knuckle shocks and thrills.

The sequel picks up where the first one left off: as a heavily armed SWAT team enters a quarantined apartment complex in an effort to find the source of the plague. The answer to this particular question may surprise newcomers to this series and certainly requires you to suspend your disbelief in order to keep up.

Don’t worry too much about this as the scares come thick and fast when the situation for the unfortunates cops goes from bad to worse. Directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza must be commended for sustaining viewer's interest with some super camera work including some point-of-view stuff that ratchets up the tension to almost unbearable levels.

It’s not all perfect as the film's focus on action this time around leaves little time for character and there isn’t as much mystery either as we already know what has become of the apartment block's residents.

These niggles are small, however, and barely detract from a horror film that gets so much right that it's genuinely terrifying for most of its 85 minute running time.

One to avoid

Death at a Funeral

Chris Rock proves once again that although he may have been one of the brightest lights in stand-up comedy, his forays into films regularly turn out to be laugh free zones.

A remake of a little-seen British film that was released just three years ago, Death at a Funeral continues this trend with Rock’s character Aaron presiding over the funeral of his father and dealing with his mirthlessly oddball family.

When the best gag in the film is the increasingly crazy behaviour of the token white guy who accidentally takes some LSD, you know that you are in trouble. The rest of the film runs through just about every tired joke in the book while finding time to include a gay lover sub-plot that even the excellent Peter Dinklage can’t make funny.

If you still want to see a funeral-set farce we suggest you seek out the original but if you watch this one, you might end up wishing the funeral was yours.

Leo Stiles